Body found in Lake Murray identified as South Carolina man, coroner says
A man’s body was recovered in Lake Murray Tuesday morning, Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster told The State.
At about 10:30 a.m., the sheriff’s office got a call from a boater that there was a person in the water near Dreher Island State Park in the Newberry County portion of Lake Murray, according to Foster.
Sheriff’s deputies, along with members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, park services and Newberry County EMS responded to the scene and found the man in the water, Foster said.
After the body was recovered, life-saving measures were attempted but unsuccessful, and the Newberry County Coroner’s Office was called to the scene, according to the sheriff.
Randy Alvin Cox, a 67-year-old Fountain Inn resident, was identified as the man found in the water near Prosperity, Coroner Laura Kneece said Wednesday.
An autopsy will be held Wednesday to determine if the man drowned or if there was another cause of death, the sheriff said. Foster said the death doesn’t appear to involve foul play.
The man might have fallen out of a boat and into the lake, as an unoccupied boat was located nearby soon after the body was recovered, according to Foster.
Information about how long the man was in the water was not available. Foster said it’s likely the man fell into Lake Murray Tuesday, because it happened in a popular area and the body likely would have been spotted and reported earlier if the incident happened earlier in the week.
There was no word on the depth of the water where the body was recovered.
Both the sheriff’s office and coroner’s office are continuing to investigate the death.
Foster said he believes this was the first water death of 2023 in the Newberry County portion of Lake Murray.
The year started with the recovery of a missing man’s body in the Lexington County area of the lake on Jan. 1. The man went missing on Dec. 28 while diving with a group in an area of Lake Murray that is estimated at 120 feet deep. He was last seen near the lake’s hydroelectric intake towers.
There were other water deaths reported in Lake Murray in 2022.
In early August, the body of a missing boater from Edgefield was recovered in the lake after more than a week of searching, according to DNR.
About two weeks prior to that, the body of a 72-year-old Saluda man was recovered July 20, the day after he fell off a boat and disappeared in Lake Murray. The body was found in the area of the lake near Little River Landing, the Saluda County Coroner’s Office said.
In June, the DNR said it recovered the body of a missing boater near the Lake Murray dam. Officials said the death was an accidental drowning.
In April, the DNR dive team recovered the body of a male boater after he fell overboard around Buffalo Creek near the Grant Williams Estates, the Newberry County Sheriff’s Office said. The man was a Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, resident who was visiting Lake Murray with his wife, according to DNR.
DNR said it was the lead agency five water death investigations on Lake Murray in 2022. There has only been one death on Lake Murray this year that DNR said it was the lead agency, that involved a heart attack.
